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Homeless document plight

Laura Stricker

The Sudbury Star

Tuesday, January 15, 2013
10:03:46 EST PM

Darren McGreggor performs Tuesday at Homelessness in Sudbury: Images, Video and Music, a multimedia exhibit organized by the Poverty, Homeless and Migration project and the University of Sudbury Ethics Centre.(Gino Donator, The Sudbury Star)

Underneath the Bridge of Nations. In an apartment with crumbling walls and peeling paint. Beneath a water-stained ceiling. Lights with frayed wiring that to touch is to take a gamble.

These are just some of the ways people in Sudbury and Northern Ontario – who don't have a safe place to call home – live. And they were on display Tuesday at Homelessness in Sudbury: Images, Video and Music, a multimedia exhibit organized by the Poverty, Homeless and Migration project and the University of Sudbury Ethics Centre.

Aside from the photovoices project, which 13 homeless or near-homeless people – seven men and six women – participated in, short videos and a documentary were screened to show another side of homelessness.

“The images you've been seeing on the screen have been taken by some of the participants in our projects. They reveal some of the living circumstances of poverty and homelessness, right here in our own community,” said Carol Kauppi, director of the five-year research project.

Will to Live: George Stephen On and Off the Street tells the story of George Stephen and his 20 years spent living on the street, including in Sudbury. The half-hour documentary, which recently won best short documentary at the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival, screened at Tuesday's event. It was followed by a panel discussion.

“I want to try and make these opportunities to have a discussion about ethics,” said Jamie Robertson, coordinator of the University of Sudbury's ethics centre, who helped organize the event. “I want to make them relateable and, if not entertaining, then certainly something that is engaging for people.

“I thought this would be a great way to collaborate. I was so excited when they told me the nature of the research, because it's just a great way to have this kind of discussion through a variety of different senses.”

She was hopeful the event would be the first step in breaking down barriers that stop people learning about the issue of homelessness.

“I'm hoping is that this event will create an opportunity for people to learn and to not have to rely on these stereotypes anymore in society about what it means to be homeless and who's homeless. Instead ... we can give people a direct connection to people who have lived and experienced homelessness so that they can make good judgements on their own, so that they can approach homelessness as an issue from another perspective.

“(The project taught me) homelessness isn't just people on the street,” she added. “There are all sorts of people where homelessness means they move from place to place. So they're still homeless. Like they have a roof over their head, but that doesn't really make things better. There is an area between having a place to live and being on the street that is equally disruptive to people's lives as being on the street.”

For more information on the Poverty, Homelessness and Migration project, visit www.lul.ca/homeless.